chamber of sickness, Rosilia, waiting in an ante-room, dreading, yet anxious to hear his opinions, no sooner heard his footsteps, than with precipitation she advanced to make her inquiries.
It was to Rosilia Melliphant gave the regulations necessary to be observed concerning regimen and prescriptions; when, upon such occasions, the absence of the General seldom failed to afford him a tête-à-tête with his daughter. Melliphant lost not those fortunate moments, as he considered them, to use every artifice he could suggest of rendering himself agreeable, and of showing himself in the fairest light.
By frequent experience, he had learned that, by a strict conformity with social converse, temperance of manner and well-supported logic, he could win upon the esteem of the unsuspicious and confiding. Humble, therefore, in his deportment, specious and insinuating in his address, he ever bore to Rosilia the semblance of one possessed of the strictest virtue. Learned without the parade of being so, by the perfect suavity of his manner he seemed ever more ready to receive information upon any subject, than capable of bestowing it; yet there were also times, when, from some urgent motive, his sentiments were delivered with clearness, force, and precision,—when, with true rhetorical skill, and with language the most persuasive, he could enter into the deepest intricacy of argument.
Sometimes, indeed, he could not altogether suc-
